"In winter," they used to say, "the Ants were putting their damp food to dry in the sun.

There came a starving Cigale to beg from them.

She begged for a few grains.

The greedy misers replied: 'You sang in the summer, now dance in the winter.'" This, although somewhat more arid, is precisely La Fontaine's story, and is contrary to the facts.
Yet the story comes to us from Greece, which is, like the South of France, the home of the olive-tree and the Cigale.

Was AEsop really its author, as tradition would have it?
It is doubtful, and by no means a matter of importance; at all events, the author was a Greek, and a compatriot of the Cigale, which must have been perfectly familiar to him.